1. Technical Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to the integration of open advertisements from online auctions with other e-commerce activities, and more particularly to the integration of open advertisements related to auction listings with targeted websites and with search results pages.
2. Related Art
Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily since the spread of the Internet. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modem electronic commerce, or e-commerce, typically uses the World Wide Web (“Web”) at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.
A large percentage of e-commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content on a website, but most e-commerce involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail. Almost all big retailers have electronic commerce presence on the Web.
Online auctions are increasing in popularity, which include Yahoo!, eBay, Ubid, Overstock, etc. The auction sites for Yahoo! currently include those in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Another increasingly popular auction site is that for Asian Pacific Auction Centre (APAC), which includes global marketing that brings together buyers and sellers. That is, the APAC site provides to its sellers opportunities to also be advertisers of their goods in a system that identifies goods to be sold and unites buyers and sellers in purchasing arrangements.
Internet advertising is also a multi-billion dollar industry and is growing at double digits rates in recent years. It is also the major revenue source for Internet companies, such as Yahoo! of Sunnyvale, Calif. or Google of Mountain View, Calif., which provide advertising networks that connect advertisers, publishers, and Internet users. A major portion of revenue has historically comes from sponsored search advertisements and other advertising related to conducting search through search engines, for instance. Another major source of revenue includes serving display advertisements to Web pages that include content matching material related to the advertisement. These Web pages may be located with an affiliate network such as created or hosted by Yahoo! or Google, or may be third party websites that exist outside of a network of such service providers. No online search or advertising company, however, has integrated open advertisements created to promote online auction listings through affiliate or third party websites, or through search results pages from its search marketing systems.